molecules-logo

Journal Browser

Journal Browser

Pure and Natural Herbal Medicines and Essential Oils: Authentication and Detection of Adulteration and Contamination

A special issue of Molecules (ISSN 1420-3049). This special issue belongs to the section "Natural Products Chemistry".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 December 2020) | Viewed by 3532

Special Issue Editor

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Adulteration of herbal medicines and essential oils has become a serious problem. As the prices of these products increase, unscrupulous dealers are increasing their profits by diluting samples with inactive additives; augmenting “pure” samples with cheaper substitutes; adding synthetic or semisynthetic components; or adding contaminants such as pesticides, microbial metabolites, or heavy metals. In addition to misleading the consumer, contaminated or adulterated herbal medicines and essential oils can also cause adverse health effects. In this Special Issue, we invite original research articles and timely reviews on the adulteration and/or contamination of herbal medicines or essential oils and may include but are not limited to the detection of adulterants/contaminants, the adverse influence on the efficacy or aroma profiles of herbal medicines or essential oils, or possible toxic effects of adulterants/contaminants.

Prof. Dr. William Setzer
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Molecules is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Herbal medicines
  • Essential oils
  • Adulteration
  • Contamination
  • Synthetic markers
  • Semisynthetic adulterants
  • Analysis

Published Papers (1 paper)

Order results
Result details
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:

Research

5 pages, 859 KiB  
Communication
β-Caryophyllene: A Single Volatile Component of n-Hexane Extract of Dracaena cinnabari Resin
by Mohamed Al-Fatimi
Molecules 2020, 25(21), 4939; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/molecules25214939 - 26 Oct 2020
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 3014
Abstract
The pure Soqotri resin of Dracaena cinnabari Balf.f. (Dracaenaceae) has no volatile smell due to its low content of volatile constituents. Although it is insoluble in n-Hexane, we found that the resin, when suspended in n-Hexane within five days at 5 [...] Read more.
The pure Soqotri resin of Dracaena cinnabari Balf.f. (Dracaenaceae) has no volatile smell due to its low content of volatile constituents. Although it is insoluble in n-Hexane, we found that the resin, when suspended in n-Hexane within five days at 5 °C, led to the extraction of a small portion of a single volatile liquid constituent, which was identified by GC-MS as sesquiterpene β-caryophyllene. This method of extracting the volatile constituents using hexane under cooling is very suitable for resins of the Dracaena species because these resins usually contain very few volatile terpenes and/or non-terpenes, and they may contain only one volatile terpene per resin as this study result. β-Caryophyllene was identified and separated for the first time from the Soqotri standard resin of Dracaena cinnabari. Therefore, β-caryophyllene, as a new chemical property, can support to evaluate the purity of the Soqotri resin. Moreover, a big mass of D. cinnabari resin can yield concentrated β-caryophyllene as a liquid extract for further pharmaceutical and nutraceutical applications. Full article
Show Figures

Figure 1

Back to TopTop